King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “upward”

向上
xiàng shàng
upward; up; to advance; to try to improve oneself

The closest CC-CEDICT match for upward is 向上 (xiàng shàng), defined as: upward; up; to advance; to try to improve oneself; to make progress.

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Characters and stroke order

向 xiàng
towards; direction, trend
radical 30 ⼝ · 6 strokes
上 shàng
above, on top, superior; to go up; to attend; previous
radical 1 ⼀ · 3 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 向上.

WordPinyinMeaning
方向fāng xiàngdirection; orientation
走向zǒu xiàngdirection; strike (i.e. angle of inclination in geology)
倾向 (傾向)qīng xiàngtrend; tendency
转向 (轉向)zhuǎn xiàngto change direction; fig. to change one's stance
面向miàn xiàngto face; to turn towards; geared towards; catering for; -oriented; (Tw) aspect; facet
以上yǐ shàngthat level or higher; that amount or more; the above-mentioned
晚上wǎn shangevening; night
身上shēn shangon the body; at hand

See also: Japanese symbol for “upward”.

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.

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